Health
BY JESSICA PARKS
A consortium of healthcare workers,
elected offi cials, and administration
from Maimonides Medical Center
broke ground on what will soon
become the hospital system’s fi rst
freestanding emergency department
— the site of the former Victory Memorial
Hospital on the border of Dyker
Heights and Bay Ridge.
“Turning the former Victory Memorial
site into a modern emergency
care center is a huge win for the communities
of Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst
and Dyker Heights,” said Maimonides
Medical Center President and CEO
Kenneth Gibbs at the June 25 groundbreaking
ceremony. “This groundbreaking
marks another key investment
we are making in Brooklyn to
better serve our neighbors and improve
outcomes for those who need
emergency care.”
Maimonides is leasing the site at
the intersection of 92nd Street and Seventh
14 COURIER LIFE, JULY 2-8, 2021
Avenue from SUNY Downstate
Medical Center, which purchased Victory
Memorial Hospital in 2008, two
years after its closure, and recoined
the location as SUNY Downstate Medical
Center at Bay Ridge.
The hospital was only used for comprehensive
ambulatory care, which
did not require overnight stays, after
SUNY Downstate discontinued offering
urgent and laboratory care at the
site. SUNY Downstate later credited
the purchase as a partial cause for its
poor fi nancial situation in 2013.
Under Maimonides’ stewardship,
the hospital will be transformed into a
15,000-square-foot emergency department
that is expected to serve more
than 16,000 patients in its fi rst year
of operation and will be staffed yearround
by a team of approximately 75
healthcare professionals.
The June 25 groundbreaking came
close to a week after area Councilmember
Justin Brannan — who represents
Elected offi cials and health care workers joined Maimonides Medical Center offi cials at a
groundbreaking ceremony on June 25. Maimonides Medical Center
Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and parts of
Bensonhurst — broke the news on Twitter,
only hours after he teased an upcoming
“game-changer” for his district.
“Having Maimonides Medical Center
nearby has always been a great asset
to Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights but
having their modern emergency care
center right here in our backyard at
the former Victory Memorial site will
be an absolute game-changer,” Brannan
said in a statement.
On social media, the pol added that
the medical center had a particularly
special place in his heart. “I was born
at @MaimonidesMC. When I was 23 they
saved my life. When I got #COVID19, I
went there too,” Brannan tweeted.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes also
attended the groundbreaking ceremony,
as did a representative for Assemblymember
Mathylde Frontus.
The forthcoming emergency department
is expected to be a step forward
for the old Victory Memorial site,
which has a history of calamity.
In 1999, two patients were killed
in their hospital room by one of their
sons, and in 1970, a truck holding liquid
oxygen being delivered to the hospital
exploded outside, killing the
driver, a bystander and injuring 40.
The hospital also settled a lawsuit in
1992 after allegedly giving a patient receiving
emergency ulcer surgery HIVtainted
blood in 1986. The same doctor
accused of the infectious blood transfusion
faced criminal charges for allegedly
killing two patients with his secretary
around the time of the settlement.
Maimonides breaks
ground at old Victory
Memorial Hospital site